Valve announced today that a new game in the Counter-Strike series is in development at Hidden Path Entertainment. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was described as an updated and expanded version of CS: Source. The game is being designed on the updated Source Engine, but it isn’t built off of Counter-Strike: Source.

It is currently scheduled to be released in early 2010 on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The game is set to have new maps (including remakes of classics), weapons, models & animations, game modes, matchmaking options, leaderboards, and other social features that are common to games these days.

Valve promises that the game will be playable later this month at PAX Prime, but they have already invited some pro-gamers over to the studio to play it. One of those gamers, Craig “Torbull” Levin from eSports Entertainment Association, has shared some details on what he has seen.

Some of the new weapons include a new heavy machine gun, some new shotguns specifically for close range combat, a Molotov cocktail grenade for area denial, and a decoy grenade that emits sounds.